


Though The Sun May Not Rise Again

by lillpon



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Background Character Deaths, Discussions on Death, F/M, Implied eventual untimely major character death, Mentions of Blood, Natural Disasters, Post-Apocalypse, that's a long tag but it covers it lol
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-18
Updated: 2019-12-18
Packaged: 2021-02-26 01:41:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,668
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21841594
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lillpon/pseuds/lillpon
Summary: And so the world is ending. Their humanity, though, is not.Post-apocalyptic CS AU.
Relationships: Captain Hook | Killian Jones/Emma Swan
Comments: 6
Kudos: 29





	Though The Sun May Not Rise Again

Nobody expects the world to end that way.

Killian finds himself in a subway station at around 11 pm when what feels like the strongest earthquake ever shakes the whole place. People are literally _thrown_ to the end of the platform, the train that he just missed flies off the tracks to a horribly rough landing against the wall. Light bulbs and TV screens crack and the station is filled by screams of fear and pain.

What it feels like hours later, the earth stops moving and the few people left that are able to move struggle their way to the surface. Killian loses his breath at the sight - and not in a good way.

Towers, skyscrapers - they’re all gone. Very few buildings are left, and even fewer of them look only slightly damaged. The roads are filled with blood and bodies - in one or more pieces, too.

Heavily injured people stretch their arms out in despair, some too speechless to actually call for help. Killian and the other survivors try to help, but it doesn’t take them long to realize that help isn’t coming at all.

The first vehicle they see in hours is a reporter van. There’s only the driver in it, his head poorly bandaged. He doesn’t say a word when they approach him, only leads them to the back of the van, where he puts on a video for them.

It’s a broadcast from the International Space Station, the people on camera frantically trying to say that the Earth has stopped spinning on its axis. It wasn’t earthquakes that ruined the cities - it was the Earth’s own atmosphere that apparently didn’t stop _with_ the Earth. Then it’s images from space, and what Killian sees is so surreal he wonders if he’s dreaming.

He’d never wondered what would happen in such a case, but he guesses it makes sense that just because the Earth stopped spinning, nothing would stay where it was. But it’s just different to actually _see_ waves rise from the ocean and literally swallow the ground - all of Europe, the west coasts of Africa and the Americas, India and southwest Asia, even more than half of Australia, all swept up by huge tsunamis. Any place that had big bodies of water on its west is now gone.

Killian watches the video again and again, a heavy emptiness in his chest as he watches the British Isles disappear under the waves. He had some third-fourth cousins there. And of course, his scumbug of a father. Yet he keeps watching it, every time making it feel even less real.

It only sinks in when, hours later, he walks out from the half-underground assembly station the van took them at, it’s 9 am yet still dark, and significantly colder than he’d expect for October. He sinks to the ground, shaking from sobs.

He still sits outside on the slowly freezing ground when that same van arrives at the station. He looks at it, realizing his breath is now coming out in a cloud, and he counts the survivors coming out of it. One, two, three, four - a child that isn’t holding anyone’s hand, five, six-

His breath is cut short again when he sees Emma exit the van. She’s alive! He stands up slowly, his legs feeling colder by the second and he runs to her, wrapping his arms around her. She’s slow to return the embrace, he can feel her trembling breath against his shoulder, but that’s alright. She’s safe. She survived. She may still be aloof as ever and not even consider getting into a relationship with him now that the world’s ending - what the bloody hell is he thinking?! - but she’s here and she’s alive.

“You’re alive,” he says. It’s the first words he says since the disaster.

* * *

He watches her nearly gulp her food down as he holds his chin in his hand, trying to conceal how much it’s trembling. She also happened to be underground at the time of the “stop”, but her exit had been blocked and she with the other ten survivors had stayed trapped until just an hour or so ago.

One of the calmest survivors has managed to move the equipment from the van and contact the ISS.

The Earth is now tidally locked to the sun, they say.

What’s left of the Americas is stuck on the side that’s not being lit by it, they say.

Even if they survive the freezing temperatures and the detriment of civilization, they’ll never see the sun again, they say.

* * *

The Earth’s magnetic field will fade away and deadly radiation from space will enter its atmosphere. The dark side will be too cold for plants to grow even with artificial light, and the light side too hot. The inbetween parts will be wrecked by storms created from the exchange of hot and freezing air from both sides. No-one knows exactly how many people survived the “stop”, but it won’t be too long before the oxygen runs out and they suffocate.

“So what do you think?” Emma asks him on day three. “What will we die from? The cold? Radiation? Suffocation?”

“Starvation,” he says, looking at the tinned food the group has managed to scavenge. It’s not enough to last all of them long enough. There’s no doubt there’s more out there, but it would take the courage to actually risk the trek in the cold, and that’s even if the group agrees to risk using up more of the van’s limited gas.

It’s not like there are any gas stations left.

Day six, the power generator stops working. One of the survivors manages to create a dynamo-like extension to at least provide enough energy to listen to the daily announcements from the ISS. The survivors scavenge for wood to burn in the station’s only fireplace. With destroyed homes around, it’s not that hard. No-one says how they fear that’ll probably make the oxygen run out faster.

Day twelve, three of the group leave, desperate to search for more supplies. Only one returns.

Day forty, the ISS says everything on the light side is boiling. There are zero confirmed and zero estimated survivors on that side.

“Never thought I’d miss the sun that much,” Killian tells Emma. “Haven’t missed it _that_ much, but still.”

Day sixty-three, the van returns with more supplies and an empty gas tank.

With the lives lost to illnesses and lack of medicine, the rations aren’t that bad. But they’re probably the last they’ll have.

Day seventy-five, the ISS says they predict people on the dark side have about a year left of oxygen and protection from radiation.

Day seventy-five in the evening, Killian confesses his feelings to Emma.

“I’ve been in love with you since long before the disaster. I’ve feared it didn’t matter if I said anything now. But then I thought, bloody hell, the world is ending. Now’s as good as any time.”

“There’s no room for love in this world,” she says, her face fallen.

He didn’t expect anything better; he knew how much she’s been hurt in the past. “I’m not asking for anything. I just wanted you to know.”

Day eighty-two, Emma and Killian play Never Have I Ever with a half-full, forgotten bottle of rum. When he next wakes, he doesn’t remember sleeping with her tucked in his arms; he supposes she doesn’t, either, but his heart warms when she doesn’t move away upon waking up.

Day ninety-seven, Emma kisses him.

“I kind of wanted to wait for the hundredth day, for some stupid reason, but couldn’t,” she says, shaking her head.

She looks at him with a slightly apologetic face, but he simply leans back in and captures her lips in his.

Day hundred and six, there are about seven survivors left.

“So are you two gonna propagate the species or what?” Keith tells Killian when they’re on their own.

His hand shouldn’t hurt so much from punching the bastard in the face, should it?

“Lack of vitamin D, you idiot,” Victor says as he wraps a bandage that has seen better days around Killian’s knuckles. “Causes muscle and bone pain, and slower healing.” He then looks at Keith, whose nose is bleeding probably more than it would if they had sunlight. Victor just shakes his head. “Next time, you could use your hook,” he whispers to Killian, then flinches. “Not in... not in that way. You- you know what I mean.”

Day hundred and thirty, Killian wakes alone. By now he’s gotten used to the perpetually dark sky. He almost always used to wake up before the sunrise, so much that it had become part of his morning routine. But now his own body knows not to expect it, knows that when he’ll walk to the kitchen area for his breakfast rice and tea, he shouldn’t expect to see the telltale blue of dawn peeking out on the horizon.

Doesn’t mean he doesn’t miss it, of course.

Emma is sitting in front of the window, far from the fireplace, a blanket draped across her shoulders. She’s found a spot on the window that isn’t frosted over, and there’s a clear view of the sky, the stars, and the waxing moon. Grabbing a blanket himself, he sits down with her, hugging her from behind.

He’s welcomed by a familiar scent when he’s close enough. “Is that cinnamon?” he says softly.

She looks back at him sheepishly. “It’s just a sprinkle.” She shows him the cup in her hands... that’s definitely not tea. “Ruby found a mix for hot chocolate and I said that someone should have a first taste of it. It’s not as good without milk...” Her face falls.

He’s surprised how he can still feel a small pang in his heart over her disappointment. They’ve all lost so much and watched much more being lost, they’re now living in a world none of them could ever have prepared for, yet their hearts are still soft enough to understand the loss of something so small as good hot chocolate and why Emma would sneak away a sprinkle of cinnamon to make it better.

“It’s okay,” he says, kissing her hair.

What he doesn’t say is how they’ve reached the point where the existence or lack of spices makes such a difference in their moods.

“Ten days of moonlight,” Emma whispers.

He turns his attention back to the sky. “These days I think I understand why ancient cultures made the moon a deity.”

Emma sighs. “I don’t know. Half the time I just look at it and think how it’s taunting us with the sunlight we can’t have anymore.”

Now he feels a bigger pang in his heart. He hadn’t thought of it that way. “I see it like- like... a memory.”

She scoffs.

“It’s like my tattoo of Milah. When I- after I lost her, and before I met you... it was in memory of what I’d had, not what I’d lost.”

He watches her as she wraps her hand around her swan necklace. “Didn’t peg you as such an optimist.”

“It’s not optimism, Swan. I’d never thought I’d be capable of moving on until I met you.”

She looks at him for a moment, lips parted, before she smiles a bit and drops her eyes. “They did use to say that the moon spurs romantic spirit, didn’t they?”

He smiles at her light-hearted joke in face of his confession, and when she looks up at him, he leans in for a kiss, tasting cocoa and cinnamon.

Day hundred and fifty-eight, there’s no transmission from the ISS.

Day hundred and sixty-three, everyone has accepted the fact that there won’t be any more of those.

Emma and Killian sit cuddled together in front of the half-frosted window, looking at the full moon and wondering where the estranged space station might be now - if it’s still in order even.

“Do you think they’ll wanna make babies up there?” she asks.

“Is that even possible?”

“I think I saw a video once. The baby may turn out... weird? Cause of the lack of gravity.” She flinches. “Wonder how the mom would push it out without gravity’s help, too.” She’s silent for a moment, before adding, “Would you have a baby with me, if we were up there?”

A warmth spreads in his chest. “What you said about the lack of gravity makes it questionable. But I think yes.”

“What would you name it?”

“Alice, if it’s a girl. For my mother.”

“And a boy?”

He smiles widely. How different that discussion would be if the world wasn’t ending.

“I’d leave that to you.”

She smirks. “Chicken.”

He notices how she doesn’t ask why he wouldn’t give his father the same honor he’d give his mother.

She turns back front to look at the sky. “What do you miss the most?” she asks.

“As weird as it may sound, the water. My boat.”

“Why would it sound weird?”

He snorts. “I mean, with all the ice around... who would have known we’d live through an apocalypse where there’s an endless supply of water?”

She laughs softly.

“What do you miss?”

“I do miss that yellow Bug. It barely got any damage during the Stop, unlike other cars in that garage. But we could barely fit through the opening ourselves, much less a car. And I don’t think I was thinking clearly enough at the time to think it would be the last time I’d see it.”

There’s not much he’d have taken with him, had he known the world would be ending. Now he resorts to working the dynamo for hours, just enough for the tiniest bit of battery on his phone just so he can turn it on and look at the photos of his mother and brother he has saved in it, before it turns off again.

The tiniest part of him is jealous of Emma for not having such a thing to miss.

Day two hundred.

It’s quiet.

Emma is lying awake next to him, sensing what he doesn’t want to share.

It could be just a simple, minor infection that’ll go away on its own, he’s only had minor stomach pains. Though Emma’s occasional comment about his high pain tolerance worries him that it may be much worse than he thinks.

Still, since they lost Victor, there hasn’t been much they can do when they feel sick or unwell. It will either pass... or they will.

“You once asked me what I thought we’d die from,” he says.

Her brows furrow and she swallows hard.

“If I could choose... I’d go with cold.”

“Why?”

“It’s quick. Eventually you lose feeling of your limbs, and maybe that doesn’t hurt that much. Especially when your body is past the point of shivering. As for other ways, it’s already getting harder to breathe and we’re already starving. So, tried and tested.” He sighs. “Besides, you can be outside and have a last clear view of the sky and the moon.”

Does he have the courage to ask her to take him out there, if it comes to the point where he’s not gonna get better?

He sees tears in her eyes, but she smiles. “You’d probably freeze slower than me. You’re one hand short.”

“I’m also hotter.”

A laugh bursts out of her.

And still, the thought that crosses his mind is how, in spite of everything, they can still have this.

It’s the proof of their humanity that has sustained, despite the world itself doing everything in its power to make them disappear. And out of that, there grows a hope that there are people out there somewhere, in better shelters, surviving much better than they are, maybe even growing their own food and developing technology strong enough to one day, maybe years from now, reach their by then empty shelter and finding their journals, filled with happy little moments like this.

Huh. Maybe he is optimistic after all.


End file.
